Dave and Elizabeth Hingst
Czech Republic | 22582
Dave and Elizabeth felt God calling them into a new season of life when, during one unsuspecting Sunday morning church service after their pastor shared a dream about the Czech Republic, after which, they both felt God sending them into international missions. After diligent prayer and discernment, the call remained, 'tell my people I love them.'
Dave and Elizabeth's bravery tends to surprise people when they learn that these Kansans from the heartland have never traveled to Europe nor traveled internationally, but yet they are willing to follow God call's to be a grand gesture of love sending *fisherman* into the heart of Bohemia.
They have been married for 13 years with 3 wonderful children that fill their life with joy and laughter; Eleanor (10), Lucy (8), and Hudson (5) are courageous kids that only moderately questioned their parents sanity when they discussed how God was leading them into a foreign land. God has given them all abundant peace about the future in Czech, and they're ready to continue to take the faithful steps to do what they can to see God's Kingdom thrive in the Czech Republic through relational community with the people that God loves dearly.
The Czech Republic has had a rich and complicated history with Christianity spanning back to the 9th century; more recently, the world wars and reign of communism impacted the footing of religion/religious freedoms in Czechia and Europe as a whole.
Across Europe, only 3% currently profess a relationship with Jesus; within its borders, roughly 4-9% of Czechs claim to have a relationship with Christ, which has declined significantly from >40% in the early 1990s. However, even though most of the country currently functions as atheist or agnostic, there is a great amount of hunger and interest into the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is truly a land in which "the harvest is plenty but the workers are few."
The Hingsts feel honored that God would think of them to serve the people of Czech and they look forward to the ways God will use them to show His love and care for His lost sheep.